Can Law Firms Protect Their Name and Reputation from Unethical Attorneys?

Wealthy attorney steals $2 million from his clients trust funds

By Dhina Clement, Marketing –
Albert Hessberg II who has been a very respected and wealthy attorney at a major firm for a decade was found guilty of stealing over $2 million from his clients in the Albany area. He was a very trusted attorney because of his involvement in his community and his family’s influence, so he used that to his advantage so that his clients would not suspect him. Eventually, one of his victims grew suspicious of him because he used delay tactics which made it hard for the client to access their trust fund and will when the client’s relatives passed away. By the time the FBI gathered evidence and testimonies, Hessberg had stolen from at least 15 trust funds. In May, he was found guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, and filing a false tax return and was sent to prison for five years and eight months in November.

Protection

How can firms help make sure that their clients are protected from attorneys like Hessberg. Using EyeDetect®, firms can subject their attorneys to a lie detecting test periodically to prevent theft. To take the EyeDetect test, the examinee is seated in front of the EyeDetect Station monitor and asked to quickly and accurately respond to a series of true/false statements for approximately 30 minutes. During the test, the eye tracker takes measurements of eye behavior. Within 5 minutes of taking the test, data is captured, encrypted and uploaded to a secure server in the cloud to provide a credible or deceptive score. EyeDetect is currently used by more than 500 customers in 43 countries, including 50 U.S. states and attorneys. These organizations prefer EyeDetect because it’s faster, cheaper, noninvasive, and it eliminates examiner bias.

Source Photo by / Leandro Aguilar